Doctor found not at fault in death

COLDWATER — A Branch County jury took less than an hour to decide Dr. Ronald Gibson was not negligent in the 2006 death of heart patient Jerome Kupiecki.

The estate and widow, Joni Kupiecki for herself and two children, sued the on-call physician and Community Health Center of Branch County, claiming there was a failure to meet the required standard of care.

Gibson was called to the ER in the early morning of June 1, 2006 when Jerome Kupiecki came in with severe heartburn and pressure in his chest. The doctors ordered a "stress test" while 53-year-old Kupiecki was hospitalized.

The couple said the doctors never saw them after the test and a nurse told them results were normal. Even though Kupiecki, a mechanic at the Branch County Road Commission, wasn’t feeling well the couple went fishing June 3.

The wife decided her husband should get a full check-up June 5 and called the family physician, who could not see him until June 20.

The couple then called Gibson for a referral to a cardiologist, but were told he could not give one until he reviewed the stress test.

Then in the early morning hours of June 6 Jerome Kupiecki suffered chest pains, collapsed and was pronounced dead at the emergency room.

The plaintiff's attorney John Turck claimed with five EKG’s and a stress test Gibson should have looked beyond the non-specific results of the tests.

He claimed the standard of care required the doctor look at Kupiecki’s history of pain, high blood pressure, the fact he was a two-and-a-half pack a day smoker for years and his sedentary life style then refer.

If done properly, Kupiecki should have been referred for other procedures including a cardiac catheterization which would have found 90 percent blockage in one artery and 60 percent in another, the attorney argued.

Defense experts said Gibson looked at all the results and the standard did not require any further action. Gibson said it would not have made a difference to send him to a cardiologist and he thought Kupiecki "was a healthy gentleman."

Gibson said the probability of a cardiac problem was less than 10 percent and defense experts said it was less than 1 percent using information from the work-up. Turck argued even with little risk the doctor should not have discharged Kupiecki without further tests and procedures.

Defense attorney Randy Hackney argued the standard was not what further procedures "were possible" but what was reasonable from the information the internist had when he treated Kupiecki based on what other doctors would do in similar circumstances.

"Doctors are not required to predict the future with 100 percent accuracy. What doctors are required to do is to treat patients reasonably and competently," Hackney explained.

Page 2 of 2 - That was the standard on which Branch County Circuit Judge Bill O’Grady instructed the six-member jury.

Turck had asked the jury to give the family at least $400,000, if not more, for their losses.